this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2024
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Their policies lead to bad outcomes. "We don't need a fire department and I'm not paying for it" -> "oh shit our houses all burned down".
It also tends to come off as deeply anti social, and not everyone is that way.
Your anti social statement is very fair lol.
However what I was trying to say is not necessarily "we don't need a fire department" but moreso "the individual citizen shouldn't be paying for the fire department with their income. Nearly 55% of US citizens make less than $50k a year and the average income per household (in the previous percentage) is around $35k. So why should the individual spend their little bit of hard earned money on taxes when everything else is getting taxed as well?
That sounds like you change the existing progressive taxation system so the first chunk of income isn't taxed at all. That's not really a huge change
https://www.irs.gov/filing/federal-income-tax-rates-and-brackets
I think there should be more, harsher, brackets as you go up.
I also think we should probably tax unrealized gains. Or do something about like "I get a loan against untaxed assets" stuff that let the rich enjoy their wealth without paying for it.
But even all of that aside: People should pay their taxes because they benefit from it! Everyone benefits from functional fire departments! And libraries, and roads, and buses, and so on! And since taxes are percentage, the poor people are typically paying less already. (The part where some rich don't technically have "income" should be patched)
I have a little more sympathy for people who are making 50k/year that feel like their tax burden is too high. But people making $200k/year can fuck off about that.
(Also I think a lot of the squeeze now is from rent and food costs being unchecked)
I don't think you're wrong. I think how the taxes are allocated is wrong. If anything has been learned by the recent history is pennies are going to infrastructure and social systems including the VA and education. But instead, that money is used to grease hands, line pockets, corporate bailouts, make guns for other countries, the dod, and instigating conflicts. Why should the individual citizen pay for those things? There's 650,000 people experiencing homelessness a night, but the government can afford a $2 trillion defense budget. Each congress member gets an income of $174,000, governors get $150,000, and the president gets $400,000 and gets to rent the most popular house in the country for 4-8 years depending on how nice they talk to us.
So yes. The individual US citizen shouldn't have to pay for that shit
I mean, there's definitely inefficiencies and outright corruption, but I don't think they justify a switch to full on libertarianism or anarcho-capitalism or whatever. Those policies definitely will not invest in public infrastructure or education.
In an unchecked anarcho-capitalist market, the economically disadvantaged are even more fucked. No social safety nets, no regulation on companies price fixing, monopolizing, etc. So using taxes as some scary Boogeyman just doesn't make any sense. A strong welfare state is so much better for the little guy.